Frozen margaritas and carne asada fries at the Wooden...

1of 8Sergio Villanueva (SF ball cap) playing a game of pool at Wooden Nickel, a dive bar in the Mission district as seen in San Francisco, California, on August 6, 2018.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

2of 8The mezcal Negroni at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

3of 8A shot of whiskey and a Hamm’s beer at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

4of 8The Painkiller (left) and a frozen margarita at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

5of 8Mezcal Negroni at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

6of 8Regular customers Daniel Ramirez (left) and Maggy Reyes at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

7of 8Customer Sergio Villanueva plays pool at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

San Francisco has the best weather in the world. I love fog, and mist that never quite turns into rain. I even love the fact that the sun can never make up its mind.

I feel this way roughly 350 days of the year. On the other days, often in the thick of July, when friends around the country are posting beach selfies with frozen margaritas, and San Francisco is 53 degrees and overcast with a crisp wind — and I’m mad about it — there’s the Wooden Nickel. If you can’t swing a last-minute road trip to San Diego, it’s the next best thing.

Since opening three years ago on the southwest corner of 15th and Folsom, in a space previously occupied by the gay bar Truck, the Wooden Nickel has quietly become one of the coziest, most laid-back bars in the neighborhood. Its offerings are simple: reasonably priced well drinks (add a pony Miller High Life to any shot for a dollar); nine beers on tap; a rotating cast of pre-mixed alcoholic slushies served with festive paper umbrellas. A pool table, two small TVs, vintage signage, a jukebox that plays actual CDs.

And then there’s this: a small window through which cooks serve hefty, hangover-obliterating California burritos, carne asada fries and rolled tacos — the hallmarks of San Diego Mexican cuisine.

The discussion about NorCal vs. SoCal Mexican food is an often-contentious one, and as an Orange County native, Wooden Nickel owner Nancy Chung is no stranger to the regional burrito debate. She did time in San Diego before heading north to San Francisco over a decade ago, and had been working at Truck for about a year when owner Paul Ringhofer-Miller put the place up for sale in 2015.

Chung, a veteran bartender who’d always had a vision for the bar she’d like to own — “a neighborhood place, a dive bar but a clean dive bar, especially the bathrooms” — took the leap. (Initially she bought the business with fellow Mission bartenders Cassandra Fritzen and Shannon Lynn, but Chung says they’re no longer partners.)

Launching a new, not-gay business in the former digs of a gay institution is, of course, a loaded endeavor. Within a half-mile radius of the Wooden Nickel, the past few years have seen the closure of the beloved lesbian bar the Lexington Club (whose space now houses the upscale cocktail lounge Wildhawk), and Latino gay bar Esta Noche (now the similarly cocktail-focused Bond Bar).

The Nickel has cocktails, but it will never get accused of being swank. Well drinks and a generous selection of beers in cans or bottles are perennially welcome, though the stars of the menu are the slushies, in particular the aptly named Painkiller — a frozen piña colada with a deceptively potent punch, topped with grated nutmeg and a pineapple wedge. On my most recent visit the second slushie offering was a strawberry margarita, a bit too sweet for me but fresh and bright nonetheless.

Chung does hear from folks who lament Truck’s closure, but she also says she’s retained many of the previous establishment’s regulars. “It’s not a gay bar, but it’s also not a ‘straight bar,’” insists the owner. “It’s a bar for the neighborhood, for the community. It’s the kind of place where the neighbors have given us spare keys in case they get locked out.”

Then there’s the other built-in community, the one that’s grown steadily by word of mouth: Anyone can recognize a good local watering hole, but San Diego transplants, understandably, really like the Wooden Nickel.

Carne asada fries at Wooden Nickel in the Mission District.

Photo: Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

“They come in and order California burritos, like, 10 at a time,” a cook named Jesse tells me one evening, leaning against the bar after ordering a swirl. (Yes, that’s both of the bar’s frozen drinks swirled together.) He thinks for a moment, then asks for a floater of rum, too.

Hall & Oates are singing “Private Eyes.” It’s a Saturday around 9 p.m., and the smell of french fries — the defining ingredient in California burritos and, of course, in carne asada fries — wafts dreamily from the kitchen.

Carne asada fries are ubiquitous in San Diego, not to mention available 24/7 at several establishments; as a student at UCSD, they may have saved my life on occasion. But in San Francisco, they're much harder to find. The Nickel’s rendition is legit, though I do wish the fries were a bit thicker — you need heft to maintain structural integrity under the weight of steak, three kinds of cheese (shredded cheddar, jack and cotija), pico de gallo, guacamole and crema.

The California burrito here, meanwhile, is a purist’s affair: meat, fries, tortilla, guac, sour cream; the whole thing wrapped tightly and pressed on a grill. Add some of the Wooden Nickel’s tangy house hot sauce, available in a squeeze bottle at the end of the bar. Try to eat just half, then fail and eat the whole thing. The juice from the meat will have pooled into the fries at the bottom, which means the last few bites are the best. You are doing it correctly.

Clockwise from top: Wooden Nickel owner Nancy Chung (right) chats with customers at the bar; a mezcal negroni; the Wooden Nickel’s California burrito with its telltale french fries.

Photo: Photos by Craig Lee / Special to The Chronicle

Tuesdays at the Wooden Nickel are Taco Tuesdays, meaning those in the know will show up at 6 on the nose and stay until at 8 — two hours during which $1 gets you a Baja-style beer-battered shrimp taco, $2 gets you a crispy taco filled with chicken or potato, and $10 will send you home very, very full.

The Wooden Nickel doesn’t quite have the personality of a true dive yet — much like fries at the bottom of a California burrito, it needs to marinate a bit longer. What it does currently have is a strong skater contingent. On a recent Monday I counted three different Thrasher T-shirts within 10 square feet, and a pile of five boards on the floor. But because this is the Mission, there are also employees from the tech company down the street; off-duty bartenders and other food-service folks sitting at the outdoor tables, smoking; and the occasional low-key Tinder date.

So, yes, it’s a typical neighborhood bar in many ways, but Chung notes that she’s also proud of running a female-owned business in what, despite some progress, still feels like “such a dude industry.”

“The stereotype for bar owners is that they’re the sleazy older guy at the end of the bar, hitting on girls 20 years younger than him, right?” she says. “It feels good to be something else, and I love that I have a lot of women bartenders. I look around my bar and there’s always a lot of women, which isn’t true most places I’ve worked.”

On my most recent visit, a new female bartender is on shift, training. It’s one of those Mondays where you were just going to get one or two beverages with a friend and be on your way, but all of a sudden it’s 1 a.m.

Time has passed languidly inside this small corner bar, and the smiley new bartender is asking if you’d like some sparkling water. My friend and I would. We both used to live in San Diego, after all, so naturally we’ve just split an order of carne asada fries.

Outside, there’s a cold bite in the air. But here in the bar, someone has just put on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who might as well be the house band for every generic beachside bar in Southern California, and we both laugh. Outside, it’s summer in San Francisco, but at the Wooden Nickel, it’s always frozen margarita weather.